My Thursday was very packed. It was one of those days I wished someone at Higher Grounds asked how my day went, because I had something to say other than, “it was okay.”
First, I had two midterms, both in math. The first was for linear algebra, which I think went okay–at least it was better than the second midterm for stats.
Afterwards, when I got home work left an interesting message on my answering machine that all our circuits were down. This meant I really needed to rush over to the office and see what’s up. Of course, it wasn’t quite that simple. Apparently my dad wrecked a crown on one of his teeth, so he needed to go to the dentist that day. So while I needed to get to the office as fast I could, my dad also needed to get to the dentist. I know that I have this habit of wanting to “hide myself in a room” when situations don’t have a simple path to follow–in otherwords, I don’t always want to face things head on, and work out solutions. Sometimes I would rather just make Napolean Dynamite like grunting noises than find a solution. But whatever, I called my dad, and then I called my boss and told him that I would be a little be late in getting to the office.
All it took to solve a simple problem was a few phone calls, and everyone’s needs were met.
So I got to the office, looked at the equipment, confirmed that there actually was a problem. Tried to find a screw driver to open a case, but didn’t have much luck there–stupid non-standard hexagon screws. After twenty so minutes of messing around, my boss called me and told me that the telephone company called them and said there was a fire in the building. So I was like… umm.. okay, this sounds interesting. I went to the land lord’s office and learned that they were right–some telephone guys were doing a cable run and started a fire.
My next task now was to find the telecom techs who were on site. They were in the second floor wiring closet. Now my next job is to communicate, and negociate with them to get my circuits fixed ASAP. Again, I felt like just hiding somewhere, but I couldn’t. Sometimes I really wish I was a better people person who could push others with some type of charisma, but I’m rather much more timid and shy, and not very use to this thing of demanding my own way. The techs told me that another tech was on his way to look into my problem. So now I had to wait, and try to get a ETA for my boss.
So while I was waiting I did manage to start a conversation with one of the techs. He told me he had been working for over 30 years for the same company, never saw a layoff during that time, been through two strikes, and had three years left till retirement. Later, when the tech who was working on my problems showed up, I talked to him for a bit too, and gave him my circuit numbers. Nice guys. They all wore the same sweatshirt, and had on jeans, so it looked like they were a member of a hockey team or something.
What happened to the cables was that the techs were doing a cable run, and were running a 100 pair cable through an alluminum conduit which already had a couple bundles of cable in it. They had some sort of lubricant on the cables which caused the wires to short and arc as they ran the cable. This eventually melted the insulation on some of the existing bundles.
There is one lesson I learned about my kind of work which is very important, and that is things break, and things break quite a bit. Pretty much all we do is fix things that break, or create new things that add to the number of things which will break. So if you want to be good at this stuff, you have to be good at staying calm and relaxed, or else you won’t really last that long. It’s all a matter of just working it out.
Oh ya… I’m also glad that I’m not pushy, and that I’m not one of those charasmatic get-my-own-way-from-other-people type person. And one of these days I’m going to master the art of not wanting certain qualities I see in other people, when it will cost me the very person I am.
Know who you are, and then serve others with it.
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